Today, for the first time since August of 2010, I received shares of EA stock through the employee stock purchase program. In this program, EA deducts a certain amount of money from your paycheque for six months. At the end of the six months, that money is then used to buy the stock at a discounted price. The stock is then for you to do as you choose. The safe bet is to sell the stock immediately because you assured a profit. Waiting is dangerous.
If you wait, the stock price can then fluctuate from your original purchase price. Sure it can go up but that hasn’t been the trend for EA stock recently. It can also go down in price which is a more likely scenario. If that happens, you lose money if you sell. With the current state of the global economy and where EA is right now, selling immediately is the safe and logical choice. I put my sell order as soon as I got notification the shares were in my account.
I’ve been burned before. Some of my loyal readers know that I have four blocks of shares that I held onto when the purchase price was around $40 a share. What a fool I was. I can only hope to break even someday with those. The most likely scenario is I can just claim capital losses.